


Second First Look

by raendown



Category: Naruto
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-30
Updated: 2017-10-30
Packaged: 2019-01-26 21:03:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12566120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raendown/pseuds/raendown
Summary: Madara sees something new and takes a second first look. Tobirama does the same. Hashirama shakes his head.





	Second First Look

When their two peoples had made peace after countless generations of pointless fighting, the Heads of both clans as well as their heirs had each taken public vows to commit no further violence against each other. Things had been easy between Hashirama and Madara, two estranged friends simply picking up where they had left off years before. For Tobirama and Izuna things had been slower, a gradual building of trust as each kept a sharp eye on the other’s every move. After a great many deliberate shows of goodwill between the four prominent figures, tensions between the rest of the two clans had been reduced significantly until one day it seemed as though they had always been at peace.

Now, despite how far they all had come, Madara was fairly sure that Tobirama was trying to kill him.

The two of them weren’t close, by any means. They saw each other in passing as they both worked on different projects to raise a village where there had once been naught but trees and rock and a dash of hope. Occasionally Madara spent an evening in the Senju household to join them for dinner, though it was hit or miss whether Tobirama would be present or not and he usually disappeared again right after. He couldn’t recall a single instance of them actually spending their personal time together outside of work.

Looking at the scene before him convinced Madara that he would have to change that – if he didn’t keel over of a heart attack before he had the chance. It simply wasn’t possible for any human to look that good in glasses. He hadn’t even known that Tobirama _wore_ glasses until he’d seen him at the kitchen table of his brother’s home, small black frames perched on the bridge of his nose as he went over a few reports that had been handed to him just as he left the Administration Building. Hashirama scurried around the stove, blathering away as he cooked and entirely oblivious to the fact that his best friend wasn’t paying him the slightest attention.

Strangely, Tobirama himself hadn’t seemed to notice that he was being stared at either. At least, he hadn’t caught Madara in the act yet. Most of his concentration was on the papers before him, sparing a moment every so often to roll his eyes when his brother said something particularly inane.

“And I was thinking,” Hashirama continued to chatter on, “that we should also send an emissary to the Haruno clan. They’re merchants, not shinobi, but it would be a great benefit to have their expertise on hand to help protect us from any swindlers. They would know how to keep on top of prices for produce and textiles and how to get the best deals.”

“That’s actually a good idea; are you coming down with something, Aniki?” Tobirama didn’t even look up from the form he was filling out as he spoke, thereby missing the overdramatic pout Hashirama turned around to give him.

“You’re so mean to me!” Hashirama declared. Then he was immediately distracted when he spotted Madara. The Uchiha clan Head could barely tear his eyes away from the man across from him and the longer he stared the more red his face became. “Madara, are you feeling okay? You look a little red.”

The man in question snapped his head around, glad the subject of his staring hadn’t caught him but embarrassed that Hashirama had. “Shut up! It’s hot in here. Turn your heat down!”

“But Brother’s been sick and I’m trying to help! He keeps saying he’s cold so I turned the heat up to make him feel better.” Hashirama gave him a helpless look. The man always tried to please everyone at once and whenever he couldn’t it was like the world ending in his eyes, the sap.

Right on cue, as though being spoken about had reminded him that he was unwell, Tobirama sneezed. Madara’s heart fluttered inside his chest. Even his _sneezes_ were adorable! Who the hell was this stranger and how had he managed to swap bodies with the Tobirama that Madara knew? Peripherally he had always known that the younger man was attractive, of course, but he’d had years of being enemies to build up an immunity to it. He had no idea what it was about the revelation of his glasses that made it suddenly so hard to ignore that attraction – or what about his surprisingly delicate sneezes suddenly made him want to wrap the man in blankets and sit next to him by a fire somewhere.

“Guh.” Madara made a wordless noise of exasperation at his own thoughts. When Hashirama looked at him again he only blushed harder, lifting a hand to fan himself to pretend he was just overwarm.

“Do you want a cold drink or something?” his friend offered. Madara shook his head.

“I’m fine,” he muttered. Hashirama hummed but went back to cooking and chattering away.

In an effort to relieve some of the heat in his face, he gathered the masses of hair tumbling down his back and wrestled with them until he had gathered it all in to a tail on the top of his head. He couldn’t work it through a regular hairband the way others with shorter hair could but he did have a length of leather on one wrist that he used to tie around the base. A few strands escaped to fall down and frame his face but he felt a little bit of his blush receding now that he could feel the air on his cheeks.

As he sighed in relief, carefully keeping his gaze away from the object of his reluctant attraction, Madara failed to notice Tobirama finally looking up at him from across the table. He therefore also missed the stricken expression he made and the way he froze to stare openly at the ponytail.

Tobirama blinked overtop of his glasses, unsure if he was seeing what he was really seeing. Was that the same Uchiha Madara? Since when did he wear his hair up like that? One of his hands rose to press against the left side of his chest, trying to calm his suddenly racing heart. He felt a blush creep its way on to his cheeks when Madara tilted his head at something his brother was saying over by the stove, entranced by the way his hair swayed with the motion, just a few strands still hanging down to accentuate his features.

“Brother?” Hashirama’s voice forced him to look away, noting from the corner of his eye that Madara turned to look at him in the same moment and hiding a sigh of relief at not getting caught. “Are you alright? Now you’re the one who looks red.”

“It’s nothing. You just turned the heat up too far, that’s all.”

When he tried to turn back to his work, he and Madara caught each other’s eyes for the first time that afternoon and found themselves locked in to a strange staring contest, neither of them able to look away for some reason. Tobirama couldn’t seem to tear his eyes away from the older man. With how much hair he had and how unruly it always was, he’d never seen the entirety of Madara’s face before. How had he never noticed how attractive the idiot was?

On the other side of the room, Hashirama paused in chopping some vegetables to glance over his shoulder one more time. He saw the way they were staring at each other, gazes intense and lost in their own little world, and a wide smile crept on to his face as he let himself fall silent at last. Neither one of them noticed. He watched the two of them for just a moment before shaking his head and returning to dicing his peppers.

It was obvious what they were both thinking. He could only wonder who would admit it first.


End file.
